Baseball: Ohtani homers in 3rd straight game as Yamamoto shelled

Kyodo News

a day ago

ANAHEIM, California - Shohei Ohtani homered for the third straight game upon his return to his old ballpark, but Yoshinobu Yamamoto took the loss as the Los Angeles Dodgers fell 7-4 to the Los Angeles Angels on Monday.
Former Angel Ohtani belted his 100th home run at Angel Stadium with one out in the eighth inning, pulling Shaun Anderson's 3-2 slider inside for a solo shot to make it a 7-1 game before Max Muncy also went deep for three runs in the same inning.
Ohtani tied Kyle Schwarber again in leading the National League with 42 home runs as the Philadelphia Phillies' left fielder also homered on the same day.
The Dodgers' comeback came a little too late, however, after Ohtani's Japanese compatriot Yamamoto (10-8) allowed six runs, the most in his Major League Baseball career, on six hits, five walks and a hit batsman over 4-2/3 innings.
Zach Neto went deep to right center off his first pitch of the game, a four-seamer, and Yoan Moncada singled in another in the first inning.
Yamamoto then surrendered four runs in the fifth when he loaded the bases with no outs and was replaced after a forgettable 99-pitch effort, including six strikeouts. Neto had another solo shot in the sixth for the Angels' last run.
"My form wasn't necessarily bad coming into the game. (But) I kept giving up runs before finding my rhythm," Yamamoto said. "I can't help it if I give up hits, but I could have kept the damage to a minimum if I had been able to stem the tide somewhere."
Yu Darvish, meanwhile, hurled six innings of one-run ball to earn the win as the San Diego Padres beat the San Francisco Giants 4-1.
Darvish (2-3) issued no walks in a commanding 84-pitch outing that saw him strike out the side in the fifth before Rafael Devers sent the right-hander's 1-1 sinker to the left-center seats at Oracle Park with two outs in the sixth to tie 1-1.
But the Padres scored three runs in the seventh off Logan Webb (10-9) to retake the lead and three relievers each worked a scoreless inning.
"My control was a bit better today," said Darvish after striking out six in his seventh start since his July 7 return from right elbow inflammation. "The ball was just so slippery and it took time to adjust. My rhythm got better gradually as the game went on."
The veteran is quickly acclimatizing to his new pitching mechanics with a lower releasing position, introduced to alleviate his physical burden.
"When I was little, I used to keep throwing against a wall using various mechanics. I tried many things at high school too, including throwing sidearm at Koshien Stadium," Darvish said. "I'm good at these things."